LONDON , England -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Campaigners in London planned to petition the British government Friday for a posthumous pardon for the hundreds of people executed for witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries .

Witchcraft has not been punishable by death for nearly 300 years .

They said Halloween is a good time to highlight the `` grave miscarriage of justice '' suffered by the men and women falsely accused of being witches .

Their petition asks Justice Minister Jack Straw to recommend that Queen Elizabeth II issue a pardon .

`` We felt that it was time that the sinister associations held by a minority of people regarding witches and Halloween were tackled head-on , '' said Emma Angel , head of Angels , a large costume supplier in London .

`` We were gobsmacked to discover that though the law was changed hundreds of years ago and society had moved on , the victims were never officially pardoned . ''

Angels launched a Web site , pardonthewitches.com , to solicit signatures for their petition . They had between 150 and 200 by Friday morning , Angels spokesman Benjamin Webb said , but they hoped Halloween publicity would generate more .

Around 400 people were executed in England and some 4,000 in Scotland for alleged witchcraft , campaigners say .

The Witchcraft Act of 1735 put an end to trials of accused witches , but many still faced persecution and jail for other crimes such as fraud .

`` It shifted from a spiritual thing to more of a criminal thing , '' Webb said , but `` it did n't pardon those people who 'd suffered before . ''

The campaigners worked with witchcraft historian John Callow to detail eight cases they hope will persuade the government to act .

They include the case of Ursula Kemp , a woman who offered cures in Essex , England in the 1500s . The uneven results of her work prompted accusations of witchcraft and she was hanged in 1582 .

A century later , Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards were begging for food in Exeter , England , when a local woman blamed one of them for an illness and they were jailed .

A jail visitor noticed Edwards ' shaky hands and suggested she was `` tormenting someone . '' It started a string of rumors that resulted in an accusation of witchcraft , and the women were executed in 1682 .

In 1645 , clergyman John Lowes was regarded as too attached to Catholicism in a strongly Reformed area . He had already defended himself once against witchcraft when he came to the attention of a notorious zealot named Matthew Hopkins .

Hopkins made Lowes walk for days and nights until he was unable to resistconfessing to being a witch . Lowes was hanged in Bury St. Edmunds , England , after conducting his own funeral .

`` Today we are well aware that these individuals were neither capable of harmful magic nor in league with the devil , '' Callow said .

He said the endemic poverty of the 16th to 18th centuries put pressure on leaders and the judiciary to blame someone for society 's problems -- so they decided to blame witches .

`` A lot of these cases were score-settling in local communities , '' Webb said , adding many cases of alleged witchcraft were n't even reported .

`` The notion that people could suspend their disbelief and believe that women were talking to toads -- just horrible times . Horrible times . ''

In 2004 , one Scottish town managed to get a pardon for the 81 accused witches that had been put to death there . The independent baron court in Prestonpans , near Edinburgh , pardoned them before the court was officially disbanded in November of that year .

In its ruling , the court pardoned both the accused witches and their cats who , it said , were executed for `` conjuration or sorcery . '' It said their convictions were based on insufficient evidence that often relied on `` voices '' or the actions of `` spirits '' to attest to their guilt .

A separate group petitioned the Scottish parliament last month , asking for pardons for each of the 4,000 witches who were put to death across the nation .

Ewan Irvine , a medium with Full Moon Investigations , acknowledged it 's unlikely they will get a pardon for every accused witch , so the group is going ahead with a private memorial in Scotland instead .

`` It would be an apology to all those accused , '' said Irvine , whose group investigates the paranormal .

Webb said while few people today may believe those men and women deserved execution , their stories still generate suspicion and stigma . That extends to modern-day criticism of children dressing as witches at Halloween with the idea that it 's evil or connected to the devil , he said .

`` Witches were not emissaries of Satan , '' Webb said . `` They were in fact persecuted women and men who deserve a pardon . ''

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice would not comment on the case but said the granting of such a pardon is extremely rare .

`` To receive a royal pardon , the test is a high one , '' the spokesman said . `` Evidence must prove conclusively that no offense was committed or that the applicant did not commit the offense . It is not enough that the conviction may be unsafe -- the applicant must be technically and morally innocent . ''

Accused witches were also tried and put to death in the famous Salem witch trials in the U.S. state of Massachusetts in the late 1600s , but all were later pardoned , said Alison D'Amario , director of education at the Salem Witch Museum .

The names of 14 were cleared in 1711 after their families applied to the government , D'Amario said . Gov. Foster Furcolo cleared one name in 1957 , and then-Gov . Jane Swift cleared the remaining five in 2001 , she said .

`` Their names are now on a list that makes it seem as though they were innocent , which they surely were , '' D'Amario said .

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Petition seeks pardon for UK witches hundreds of years after their deaths

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Around 400 people were executed in England for alleged witchcraft

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The Witchcraft Act of 1735 put an end to trials of accused witches

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In 2004 one Scottish town managed to get a pardon for 81 accused witches